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AND

DISCIPLINE.

OF THE

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

1888.

WITH AN APPENDIX.

EDITED BY BISHOP MERRILL

CINCINNATI: CRANSTON & STOWE.

NEW YORK: PHILLIPS & HUNT.

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EPISCOPAL ADDRESS.

To the Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church:

DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN: We think it expedient to give you a brief account of the rise of Methodism, both in Europe and America. "In 1729 two young men in England, reading the Bible, saw they could not be saved without holiness; followed after it; and incited others so to do. In 1737 they saw, likewise, that men are justified before they are sanctified: but still holiness was their object. God then thrust them out to raise a holy people." These are the words of John and Charles Wesley.

In the year 1766 Philip Embury, a Wesleyan Local Preacher from Ireland, began to preach in the city of New York, and formed a Society of his own countrymen and the citizens; and in the same year,

Thomas Webb, a captain in the British army, and also a Wesleyan Local Preacher, preached in a hired room near the barracks. About the same time Robert Strawbridge, another Local Preacher from Ireland, settled in Frederick County, in the State of Maryland, and preaching there, formed some Societies. The first Methodist church built in America was erected in New York in 1768. In 1769 Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor, two itinerant Wesleyan Preachers of England, were sent to America by Mr. Wesley. These were the first Methodist Traveling Preachers on the Continent. In the latter end of the year 1771 Francis Asbury and Richard Wright, of the same country and order, were sent over.

We believe that God's design in raising up the Methodist Episcopal Church in America was, to reform the continent and spread Scriptural holiness over these lands. As a proof hereof, we have seen since that time a great and glorious work of God extending throughout all the United States and Territories, and throughout the British possessions of North America; and the

planting of successful Missions in South America and in Mexico. Moreover, the Methodist Episcopal Church, in its organic form as well as spiritual power, has been successfully planted in Africa, Asia, and Europe, and God has given her great prosperity in those countries.

We esteem it our duty and privilege most earnestly to recommend to you, as members of our Church, our FORM OF DISCIPLINE, which has been founded on the experience of a long series of years, as also on the observations and remarks we have made on ancient and modern Churches.

We wish this little publication may be found in the house of every Methodist, and the more so as it contains the Articles of Religion, maintained more or less, in part or in whole, by every reformed Church in the world.

Far from wishing you to be ignorant of any of our Doctrines, or any part of our Discipline, we desire you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the whole. You ought, next to the Holy Scriptures, to understand the Articles of Religion and

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